


Muscles Better, Nerves More

by Inaccessible Rail (strangetales)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, archive warnings: flower kink, archive warnings: headboard rattling, archive warnings: let them be fragile
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-09-17 11:39:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9321902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangetales/pseuds/Inaccessible%20Rail
Summary: Emma Swan is protective of her softer parts. Killian Jones is more than willing to handle them with care.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Argh, mateys! Here there be flower crowns and explicit sexual content. I would also like to dedicate this to the thirsty babes at the CS Writers' Hub, y'all are my kinky sun and stars.

i like my body when it is with your  
body. It is so quite new a thing.  
Muscles better and nerves more.  
i like your body. i like what it does,  
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine  
of your body and its bones, and the trembling  
-firm-smooth ness and which i will  
again and again and again  
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,  
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz  
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes  
over parting flesh ... and eyes big love-crumbs,  
  
and possibly i like the thrill,  
  
of under me you so quite new.

\-- e.e. cummings

...

It’s early spring, and the flowers in Storybrooke have only just started to bloom, much to Emma’s quiet delight, when her precocious child makes it a point to upend her entire day.

“You can admit it you know,” Henry smirks, his look simultaneously knowing and infuriating all at once (not unlike a certain pirate, whose inability to concede to Emma’s pride seems to have been passed on to her son).

She’s not sure what she’s supposed to be “admitting” to, but the look on Henry’s face would suggest that she knows damn well to what he’s referring and she may as well confess now or he plans to spill the beans to all the wrong people (namely Killian and her parents, who would, undoubtedly, blow the whole thing entirely out of proportion).

“I’m not sure what you’re fishing for here,” she evades, sifting through one of the messier drawers at the station, no rhyme or reason to any of it, really.

A handful of vibrant, purple flowers appear suddenly in her vision, and she has to blink once or twice so that they re-appear in focus.

“I found _these_ on the counter in the bathroom,” he explains, smirk still firmly in place, “And even _more_ soaking in water next to the dishwasher.”

She sighs, “What do you want, Henry?”

The smile starts to waver slightly, and for a moment she feels a rush of guilt, until the smirk quickly returns as if it had never left, “I just find it interesting, that’s all.”

“It’s all the leather, isn’t?”

It’s not surprising, really. She’s spent a good deal of her time in Storybrooke cultivating a reputation for herself, made damn sure that she would be the least princess-like Savior as it was possible to be. If the leather and the gun and the aggressive behavior didn’t clinch it, the chainsaw she took to Regina’s dramatic and heavy handed apple tree certainly took care of that.

Emma Swan had a secret, however, and although it was one of the more innocuous in her rather sordid, secretive past, it still rattled her to think that someone might find out. Obviously, Henry or Killian finding out was the best-case scenario, but still, she was protective of her softer parts.

She tries to ignore his flinch out of the corner of her eye when she slams the drawer shut, closing her eyes and taking a deep, cleansing breath before acquiescing to Henry’s, admittedly innocent, observation.

He surprises her by placing a gentle hand on her arm before she can speak, “It doesn’t make you any less of a hero, mom,” he urges quietly. Sometimes so like the man she loves she can hardly believe how lucky she is to have _both_ of them in her life. “You’re the strongest, bravest person I know.”

He smiles and leaves the flowers behind on her desk before she can respond, and the guilt she felt earlier returns with a vengeance as she hears his steps get further and further away.

“Dammit,” she whispers fiercely, glaring half-heartedly at the slightly crushed, melancholy Irises on her desk. She wishes she could let go of it, this silly instinct to deny her fragility, her love of beautiful things, as if that could somehow make her weaker. Logically, she knows that it’s nothing more than a ridiculous, antiquated notion of gender and power that lingers in the frayed, damaged parts of her psyche, but that doesn’t make it any less disruptive.

A warm, refreshing gust of air blows through an open window and she sighs, relinquishing her firm, almost painful grasp on the back of her chair. It’s late afternoon, and the sun is at its warmest as it stretches itself across the open floor, heating her skin through the fabric of her jacket. The flowers are still soft in her hand when she collects them, the petals velvety and soothing against her skin despite their wrinkled edges. When she raises them to her nose, she can still catch an enticing hint of their scent, the enchanting blend of the spring’s warmth with their earthy freshness sends an eager thrill down her spine.

A vivid, almost vision-like image appears unbidden in her mind, as if the wind, the sun, and the small, innocuous flowers in her hand had somehow summoned him. The sun feels stronger, the air saltier, and it’s a familiar, soothing comfort to her frazzled nerves.

“Swan?”

The dulcet tones of his voice carry on the breeze, wrapping themselves in the heavy canvas of the ship’s sails, carried away by the crying of the gulls.

“Emma, darling?”

He sounds far closer than he should, his warmth far more heady than it could possibly be in a vision or fantasy, or whatever the hell she’s currently experiencing. Confused, she wrinkles her brow and nose, wondering if this is yet another facet of her power she has yet to explore.

“ _Emma._ ”

Firmer this time, and her eyes snap open in surprise at the feeling of his hands wrapped gently around her upper arms. “Killian—”

When she manages to tear her gaze away from the surprised, concerned blue of his eyes, she’s forced to squint against the shocking glare of the sun reflecting off the surface of the water, suddenly feels the gentle rocking of the Jolly Roger under her feet, the familiar smell of damp wood tickling her nose.

“Uh,” she gasps, “Hey?”

She smiles in a way she hopes is charming enough to avoid a flustered, overprotective smothering, and the delicate, yet undiscerning lift of his brow would seem to suggest she’s failed.

“This _is_ a surprise, I must say, Swan. Not everyday a beautiful woman suddenly appears in my arms.”

She huffs in disbelief and silently considers the young, eager faces of the various men and women she’s observed following his slight frame with a heated, shamelessly obvious gaze. Not that she can blame them, obviously, but she is _right there_.

She wants to say something flirtatious and charming, something along the lines of, “I’m in your arms everyday,” or “Humility is a good look on you, Captain.” But she’s finding it hard to ignore the note of concern in his voice, hidden behind the humor he tries so desperately to convey for her emotionally stunted sake.

“Kind of a weird day,” she admits sullenly, unable to acknowledge the selfless interest, awe, and love that she can almost always find in his unbearably kind eyes.

“Never had one of those before, have we?”

When she looks up she finds his smile, just as bright and disarming as she’s come to expect, his eyes no longer merely worried. She exhales and drops her forehead to his chest in exhaustion, feeling his soft chuckle, the heavy weight of her conversation with Henry lifting slightly from her shoulders.

Her voice is muffled when she speaks against his chest, “Henry found my flowers.”

“Come again, love?”

There’s a handsome, incredulous look on his face when she finally leans away, and she forces a stern look onto her face along with a pointed, enthusiastic finger, “You _can’t laugh_.”

“Cross my heart, Swan.”

From their place in the pocket of her jacket, the purple Irises have gotten a bit more ruffled than they were earlier, but the color is still vibrant, the scent still quietly biding its time within its frail petals.

“I’ve seen these,” he exclaims quietly, “they’ve been growing in the yard, by the shed.”

She smiles at his absurdly gentle touch of the flowers in her hand, and replies, “Yup, sprang up overnight with the warm weather.”

“You want to tell me what this is about?”

“I _love_ flowers,” she admits desperately, crushing the petals beyond repair within the confines of her fist, “after the long, depressing winters… just, the _sight_ of them.” She sighs and tries to ignore the twinkle in his eye, “I like to pick them, leave them around the house, just look at them… I guess.”

“Just when I thought the charms of Emma Swan could ever cease.”

“Shut up.”

She feels the last of the sun’s warmth on her face before his lips finally meet hers. A light, yet insistent pressure she can feel in the sudden tensing of her neck in playful defiance of his touch. The breeze is a few degrees cooler with the loss of the sun, and her skin prickles along with the heat of his hand against her cheek. He pulls away before she can truly appreciate the finer points of his kiss, and she flushes at the familiar feeling of his nose nudging against her own.

“Shall we, my love?”

His fingers are wonderfully rough when she tangles their hands together against her rapidly warming face, and when she anxiously nibbles at her own lips, she can taste a hint of rum and oranges that he left behind.

“We shall.”

…

Killian Jones is a remarkable creature that she hopes to never fully know. A maddening blend of confident righteousness and eager violence, tossed with a delightful smattering of gentleness and chivalric intention. Emma Swan wants to learn something new about Killian Jones everyday of her life, from the most lovable to the most infuriating, she wants to burrow inside that wonderful mess and remain there for the rest of her days. The good and the bad, she wouldn’t have it any other way.

Similarly, she hopes against hope that their frequent, decidedly enthusiastic, time spent locked away in their cavernous bedroom remains a constant surprise. Despite the gentleness he had shown moments earlier, his touch is suddenly rougher, more eager and impatient than she would have expected.

“You got somewhere to be?” she asks breathlessly, her voice barely above a whisper with the way his lips have begun their swift, perilous descent down the length of her neck.

When he speaks against her skin his tongue makes brief, teasing points of contact with her flesh and she feels a pleasurable tingling between her legs as he pushes her jacket from her shoulders.

“I’d be a bloody fool to imagine myself anywhere else.”

It’s hard to form coherent thoughts after that, what with the _somehow_ rougher tugging of her top over her head, the feeling of his hand and hook securing themselves beneath her denim-clad thighs. She feels her stomach heave excitedly as he lifts her into the air, her legs wrapping around his waist, arms fastened tightly across his shoulders.

The night is largely silent outside their window except for the sporadic chirping of various insects awakening from their sleep, a cacophonous melody of sound blending seamlessly with her breathless sighs and soft moans escaping in the open space between their mouths.

“Cold,” she manages to whisper against his lips, the feel of the biting night air along the bare flesh of her back causing a vaguely unpleasant shiver to crawl across her skin. All day long she’d been luxuriating in the warmth of spring, so to feel a chill in the air, despite the warmth of Killian’s touch, has her feeling more sensitive to the cold than usual.

He grunts in acknowledgement, and she suddenly finds herself delightfully pressed into the soft, wave-like warmth of their many blankets, the exposed, heated skin of his chest pressed against her own, and she wishes quietly, desperately, for the uncomfortable tightness of her bra to disappear. Her back arches in a silent entreaty, the softness of her breasts pressing meaningfully against his pleasant weight.

“Problem, Swan?” He chuckles and she resists the very real urge to give him a small pinch, her legs tightly securing themselves along his stomach and legs in a vain attempt at scolding, “I thought I said no laughing!”

She can barely keep the breathless, frightfully high-pitched giggles out of her own voice, and the reprimand falls short of barely teasing, the soft, lyrical notes of her pleasure betraying any attempt at severity.

“Ugh,” she gasps, “ _please_ get rid of it.”

One-handed wonder that he is, the offending garment is unhooked and pulled away with an alarming quickness that would have had her thinking “magic,” if not for the distracting sensation of his mouth against her breasts, his lips steadily working their way down her torso to the top of her jeans.

An unacceptable amount of time passes before she feels his breath against the top of her pubic bone, her hands flexing against the top of his back impatiently. A hush seems to fall over the room, and before she can think to wonder where the sounds of the evening have gone, a cool breeze wafts over the naked skin of her legs as he slowly rolls the fabric down her thighs and over her knees.

“Still cold?” he asks the taut skin of her belly, the soft pressure of his lips against her skin creating an involuntary movement in the tense muscles of her stomach, a nervous, anticipatory reaction that she can find no way to hide.

Her underwear is almost _uncomfortably_ damp at this point, but he makes no move to discard them, his nose and mouth pressing insistently between her legs, and she has to take a moment to breathe and forgo the dreaded feeling of embarrassment that they had worked long and hard to dissuade her of. She tries to say his name but the only noise that leaves her mouth is a gasp, and she huffs in frustration, her eyes falling shut at the gentle, probing feeling of his tongue against her heat.

Just as she’s prepared herself for the welcome relief of her remaining piece of clothing sliding away, the feeling of his body re-acquainting itself with the length of her front returns, and the fine hairs along her arms seem to rise excitedly with the unexpected feeling of his warmth and weight.

“What’re you doing up _here_?” she asks curiously, a note of wonder to her voice that she barely recognizes.

When he smiles, there’s a lovely crinkling at the corners of his eyes, and she feels her heart flutter rapidly in her chest in the reverent tone of his reply. 

“I missed you.”

Her responding kiss is harsh and insistent, hands fiercely tugging at the dark, soft strands of his hair, scratching at his scalp, and he moans loudly before bringing his hand to her thigh and lifting it eagerly over his hip as he ruts uselessly against her.

“Pants,” she whines against his chin, the scruff of his jaw scraping delightfully against her lips, and she knows they’ll be slightly red and chapped in the morning, but it’s a blissful, fading irritation that she can hardly think to acknowledge.

The final moments before he’s _finally_ where she needs him to be are swift and incomprehensible, as if each second bleeds meaninglessly into the next, her heart racing almost unpleasantly in her chest as she makes to frantically pull the fabric of her underwear aside, and it’s only when he’s exquisitely buried inside her, wet and inviting, does the sensation of time return. She can hear the chirping of the insects in his stillness, the heavy, sultry weight of him hovering over her, the now welcome rolling of the cool night air over their heated, flushed skin.

His hand leaves her hip to return to its place against her cheek and jaw, a mimicry of their kiss on the Jolly only an hour or so earlier, and she feels a familiar hardness at the back of her throat, a pressure behind her eyes that she’s become far too comfortable with in recent years. “Killian,” she finally manages to whisper before he’s practically devouring her, his hips barely moving against her.

“ _Oh_ ,” he sighs, his brow enticingly furrowed with a lingering grasp on his self-control, his teeth gently tugging on her already swollen, kiss-stained lips.

The encouraging tap of her knee against his side seems to snap him out of whatever Emma-induced reverie he seems to have found himself, and she very nearly yells with the unexpected pleasure of his body snapping hard and fast against and within her, the sound of the headboard cracking against the wall creating a loud, purposeful echo in the otherwise quiet space.

He mouths a wonderfully accented “ _Fuck_ ,” against her neck and the beginnings of a long, drawn-out tightness in her belly takes her by surprise; the contradictory, erotic events of the evening coming to fruition with the filthy words tumbling out of his mouth and across her pink, feverish skin. She begins to notice beads of sweat rolling between her breasts and down her sternum, but she only drags the blunted tips of her fingernails harder across his back, circles her hips with more strength than she thought she possessed.

When she comes it is quiet, nary a sound crosses her lips besides a soft, gracious “Thank you,” against an exhausted, proud smile that has worked its way across his sweaty, flushed face, before he finishes with a few final, well-placed thrusts that have her hand wrapped tightly around one of the bars behind her head.

As soon as he drops to the side there’s a dryness in her mouth that begs for water, and she places a quick, wet kiss to his cheek before swinging her legs over the bed and pulling his shirt on, making a quick beeline for the bathroom before running downstairs for a glass of water. A full moon shines through the window above the sink, and a welcome, all-encompassing tiredness seems to weave its way through her body, her eyelids drooping, mouth open in a silent yawn.

A flash of color catches her eye, and she remembers the purple Irises that Henry had mentioned that morning, soaking in water, their heads tilted towards her in a silent question. She scoops them up before returning to bed, a small, delighted smile obscuring her otherwise sleepy expression.

…

If it were in his power to do so, Killian Jones would choose to awaken to the sound of Emma Swan’s laughter everyday for the rest of his life. It’s so soft he can barely hear the cadences of its movement, but it’s there, a bright, loving thing that he feels just as surely as he can feel the early morning sun against his face.

He had fallen asleep before Emma had returned to bed the previous evening, waking only briefly to the light, tickling sensation of her fingers running up and down the length of his arm. A familiar, repetitive motion that he’s begun to suspect comforts her more so than it does him, but he had fallen back into a deep sleep regardless, his mind and heart full with thoughts of Emma, her long, blonde hair covered in the pale pink petals of Middlemist roses.

“Morning,” she hums somewhere close to his ear, and he smiles before opening his eyes to the no doubt wondrous sight that awaits him.

“I know you’re awake,” she continues, “it’s creepy that you won’t just admit it.”

“Just savoring the moment, love,” he explains, and the sight is indeed, just as, if not slightly more beautiful than he expected. “Would you look at that.”

“Cut it out, I am not at my most elegant this morning.”

Practically speaking he supposes she’s right; a large, cotton flannel hangs off one shoulder (and what he _thinks_ might be a coffee stain covers the breast pocket), her hair is a knotty mess on top of her head, with rather sizable, long strands that she had clearly missed in her hurried attempt to look marginally presentable. She still looks vaguely tired, but content, and sometimes it’s enough to be thankful for. 

It’s then that he notices the busy motion of her hands, the purple of the flowers she had shown him the evening before tangled around one another in an indiscernible pattern.

“What’s that you’ve got there, love?”

“Oh, nothing,” she answers mischievously, and he notes a playfulness that he would happily take in exchange for the tiredness that lingers around her eyes. _Besides_ , he thinks with only a slight hint of astonishment, _there was always time for a nap._

He’s propped up against the headboard, a mug of hot tea in hand when he feels her fussing with his large, messy nest of hair he’s yet to tame. The flannel she wears is only partially buttoned, so the view is distracting enough that he briefly forgets about whatever’s going on up there, but then he notices a small, violet-colored petal fall in front of his eyes and he forces himself to look up.

“What’s this, now?”

“There,” she says wistfully, her hands coming to gently frame his face, _desperately_ in need of a shave or a trim at the very least, “perfect.” She plays with a few strands of hair that have fallen over his forehead, and the softness in her expression makes his chest tight.

He sets the tea aside and tries to sit straighter despite Emma’s weight in his lap, his attempts to construct a princely countenance encouraging yet another wonderful stroke of laughter from her lips, “What do you think, Swan? Will the King and Queen approve?”

…

It’s somewhat surreal to think that the man currently beneath her; this shirtless, sleepy, miracle of a human being (flower crowns, untrimmed beard and all) could be the same man that had fucked her quite ardently into their headboard the night before. The sun has begun to make its way out from behind the early morning fog, but she can smell rain in the air, observe the heavy clouds in the distance, and quietly makes the decision to stay in bed until _at least_ the afternoon.

There’s clearly an element of humor in the question, but there’s a deeper chord, something about meeting her parent’s approval and being “nothing but a pirate,” and she can’t quite kiss him deep enough or gentle enough after she responds, her voice quiet and firm in the early morning silence that falls around them like a cocoon, “Who gives a damn?”

**Author's Note:**

> And just in case you haven't heard, I have a writing blog on Tumblr, [@hencethebravery](http://hencethebravery.tumblr.com).


End file.
